Modules

  nr 1                          nr 2                         nr 3                      nr 4

Seasalt is the first poem of the volume "The Brooklyn Branding Parlors" by James Purdy, and is also the opening of the song cycle. The melody is based on the fifth hour of the tone clock, an hour for which I seem to have developed a special liking. Not only in my compositions but also in my bass solo's I often play the fifth hour. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that the number 5 is of a very important number in my life. My date of birth, for instance, is 25-05-1955, and my personal numbers also is 5. This number is acquired by adding all the numbers in date of birth: 2+5+5+1+9+5+5=23 and 2+3=5. Recently I bought a ticket in the lottery of which the last two numbers were 25, and I won  two prizes: 25 guilders and 50 guilders. But this liking for the fifth hour can also be dictated by it's extraordinary color, originated by the diminished fifths and the semitones. They give this hour its intense, but also melancholy character. The first four bars of seasalt  clearly show the importance of the diminished fifths in the melody:
   The four triads the melody was derived from are:

At the top of this article, four modules of the tone clock are displayed, and they are the basic material for this composition. The four fifth hour triads from the melody are displayed in module nr 1. In the melody the sequence of the notes is not as strictly organized as in the tone clock displays, but the triads appear in cells, and within these cells the sequence of the notes can be varied.
The accompaniment of the three saxophones has a rhythmical pattern of its own, and is based on the seventh hour:

 The eighth hour is displayed in module nr 2. In the fourth bar, the baritone sax and the double bass play a pattern based on major fourths descending chromatically. This combination of intervals (major fourths and semitones) is found in the fourth hour of the tone clock. This same hour is played in the background for the soprano sax solo by the three remaining saxophones, playing rhythmical accents in a fourth hour harmony as displayed in module nr 3. The double bass plays a pattern derived from the ninth hour, steered by the tenth, as displayed in module 4.